Keep It All Inside
by Naguabo
Summary: Coach Stan Traub knows what he loves. He loves football, and coaching, and his hometown of Dillon, Texas. And because he doesn't want to lose that, he knows he can't let anyone figure out exactly what else he loves.


**Keep It All Inside**

Coach Stan Traub knows what he loves. He loves his hometown of Dillon, Texas – well, he's been living here ten years and wants to stay, so that makes it hometown for him – and he loves the game of football and coaching it. He loves watching kids learn the game and progress at showing their learning on the field. And that means he absolutely has to stay quiet about what else he loves.

What was he even thinking, taking on that job with Coach Taylor at East Dillon? And not just that, spontaneously volunteering to become the guy's assistant when he came into Circuit City wanting to get his VCR fixed or exchanged. Well, Stan can explain that: he let his desire to coach get the better of him. It was a chance to work with and learn from a state champion. But now he's stuck thinking about what a risk he took on. All it takes is one kid – hell, maybe even an assistant coach like him - getting the wrong idea, one embarrassing moment, and he's going to be out on his ear. Maybe have to leave his home and his job – it isn't much, but it keeps the bills paid – and find somewhere else to start over.

Because the other thing Stan Traub loves is men. Not boys, real grown-up men like himself. That's just how he is, no matter how long he tried to deny it, it's part of him, just like that syndrome that makes him repeat other people's words when he hasn't taken his pills or like being left-handed and drinking his coffee black. And this is Texas, where men are men, and that means the whole hog, steak-grilling, beer-chugging, bicep-flexing, football-loving, power tool-wielding men. Stan can play that part, all right, after all, he was born and raised in this state, and he can lift weights and barbecue with the best of them. And actually like it. But with all the child abuse scandals coming out recently, an openly gay high school football coach in Texas is definitely not on the map.

So anything he does, he's got to make sure it stays out of town. That's why he played dumb when Coach Taylor's daughter Julie asked him about when he was checking out that bar in Barton. She's a smart girl and probably managed to put two and two together – she was there with a lesbian friend of hers, after all – but anybody else in her place might have started talking, and in towns like Dillon, talk spreads like wildfire. Whenever a few vacation days come around, he heads for the big cities – San Francisco, Chicago, DC, Boston, Miami, anywhere that really feels different. He's already prepared each time – where to stay, which neighborhoods to go out in, what to watch out for. And if any talk about plans comes up at work or anywhere, he knows how to be vague. "Going on a bit of a road trip" or "seeing my folks out of town" or "just want to see some different parts of the country" usually covers it. Then he can let himself go. Just having felt free for a few weeks out of the year is enough to give him the courage to put his genie back into the bottle, to face the rest of the year in Dillon.

Of course he wishes things were different. He'd like to be able to have a few friends that he can actually talk with about these things. When he tried that years ago, though, they all seemed to kind of melt away eventually. They said they were okay about it at first, but over time things got clear, they really weren't. He'd like to live right in a neighborhood – like he used to when he lived in Fort Worth and in Houston – and not have to pretend he doesn't notice the people talking about him behind his back, watching his every move to try to figure out whether he's "one of them" or not. Instead, he took out a loan for the fixer-upper where he lives, out near Kilroy, just farmland around it. Made it into a place he likes, that he's comfortable with, so that at least for the time that he's going to be there by himself, it feels all right. With nobody nosing around to see what he's up to.

That's why he doesn't just go somewhere else. Because whatever might be wrong with it, Texas, dusty and dry-hot football-crazed flatland Texas, is still his home. It's what he knows best, and where – as far as everything else – he's actually built a comfortable life for himself. There are things he likes here, and the way people in Dillon are so intense about football and about their town is one of them.

Sometimes that voice gets into his head and tells him how much he'd really like for things to be different. He'd like to be able to walk around with a partner, the way Coach Taylor and his wife are, without facing any stares or talk or anything. He'd like to have somebody to talk to, somebody to ask what he's doing wrong, how come on his last couple of trips out of town he didn't manage to connect with anybody. He wants to be able to shout "It's not something wrong with me, there's nothing wrong with me, it's just that I'm different from you!" Not like Scott back in high school, who took himself off the count because he couldn't face the idea of his parents hating him. And to be honest, sometimes he even finds himself wishing that one of those kids he coaches every fall could be his, could call him Dad, could come home with him for a pizza dinner and toss footballs around in the backyard and yes, even argue with him about why he didn't do his homework. And not his in the sense of actually getting a woman pregnant, because that's really not him – he can hide being gay, but he's not going to get another person and her feelings involved in him pretending to be straight – just in the sense of his to raise, his to take care of, his to – what's wrong with admitting that? - to be cared about.

Instead, he's just got to go on with his work and his coaching, and any other hobbies he can think up from time to time, and the rest of it, just keep it all inside.

That's why he didn't vote for Mayor Rodell either. He can tell, and he's pretty sure some other people can too – that it's not out of political admiration that she has Missy Blankenship the real estate lady hanging around every public event. In fact, he's even heard other people talking about how the mayor is or maybe isn't a lesbian. Because if she could just be open about it, tell the world who and what she is, and never mind if she loses the election after that – then maybe the world could actually change a bit, and inch closer to how Stan would really want things to be.

It's not happening here and now though. So until then, Stan knows he's got to just go about his business, do his best to keep his job and pay his loan, and be the best football coach that he can – and the rest of it, he's just keeping it all inside.


End file.
